To provide telephonic communications between computer terminals connected to a packet network, “voice over IP” (VoIP) software called “softphone” software is employed that typically conforms to the protocols defined in Recommendation H.323 of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) entitled “Visual Telephone Systems and Equipment for Local Area Networks which Provide a Non-guaranteed Quality of Service”. The first above-identified copending application improves the reliability of calling party identification in VoIP applications by employing a feature server that obtains “caller-ID” information from the telephone company rather than relying on the information provided by the caller.
In a packet switched communications system which is intended to serve business customers it is important, not only to identify the caller, but also the reason that the call is being made. This is of special importance where a large number of calls may be simultaneously incoming to a called party who has operators or sales attendants standing by to field hundreds or thousands of calls in a day. To facilitate the handling of such calls it would be advantageous to obtain sufficient information from callers before any call is answered and to provide a display of the call queue with sufficient information to enable any of the call center attendants to determine which calls should be answered first, which calls are from repeat callers and to whom a call should be directed.